Karen Crouse

CHARLOTTE, North Carolina - J.B. Holmes held on for his first PGA Tour victory since 2008, following a harrowing six years that included two brain operations in 2011 to correct a malformation that threw off his balance and motor skills.

He won the Wells Fargo championship with a final round 1-under-par 71 to finish at 14-under 274, one stroke ahead of Jim Furyk, whose 65 was the low round of the day.

In his haste to return to top form in 2012, Holmes developed tennis elbow. In an effort to hurry along his conditioning, he tried in-line skating in March last year, but he fell and broke his ankle, which caused him to miss the 2013 Wells Fargo championship. Holmes was sidelined for most of the year after having surgery on both the ankle and the elbow.

Playing on the PGA Tour this season with a major medical exemption, Holmes secured full playing privileges for the next two years with Sunday’s victory, worth $1.242 million. He also took possession of a trophy, which will be a nice place to put the piece of his skull that he kept from his brain operations, he said.

Advertisement

Asked whether he harboured any doubts the last few years about regaining his winning form, Holmes, 32, said, ‘‘There’s always that flash that comes into your head, but I didn’t let myself go there.’’

Like Holmes, Furyk missed the event last year. Physically, he was fine; it was his spirit that was broken. For Furyk, the 2006 champion, golf had gone from a game to a grind.

‘‘I didn’t feel like my head was in a good place,’’ he said. ‘‘I wasn’t having a lot of fun playing.’’

Furyk, 43, started working with a sports psychologist, Bob Rotella, who helped him chip away at the layers of responsibility and poor results that had taken the polish off the game.

‘‘I started playing this game as a kid because it was a blast,’’ Furyk said. ‘‘So I wanted to attack it that way and enjoy myself out here.’’

Putting is not Holmes’ strong suit, but he had to lean on his putter throughout the week because his length off the tee, usually his strength, got him into some tight spots. He led the field in driving with a 302.3-yard average but found only 26 of 56 fairways and hit just 17 greens on the back nine in the four rounds.

He missed the fairway and the green on the par-4 closing hole. Leading Furyk by two, Holmes took out his driver instead of a long iron, which would have been the safe, conservative move, and deposited his drive in the pine needles right of the fairway. His second shot landed in the rough short of the green.

Furyk, who was emptying out his locker, stopped and stared at the television after Holmes chipped to 45 feet. He resumed packing after Holmes’ par putt stopped 3 feet from the pin.

‘‘I know he was probably dying a million deaths out there,’’ Furyk said, ‘‘but he sucked it up and made a good two-putt at that hole.’’

Holmes’ victory was his third on the PGA Tour. In all three of his wins, he has held the 54-hole lead. Why is he so good playing from ahead?

‘‘I don’t know,’’ Holmes said with a shrug.

The answer can perhaps be found in his approach to life. Rather than rue all his setbacks, Holmes said, ‘‘I try to get past that and live in the now.’’